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The book is at its best when most particular, most vivid, both in physical description (Ugwu senses "the acridness of hot metal" even though he can't see the bullet), or emotional. At its broadest, this novel is 'about' colonialism, ethnic allegiance, class, race, moral responsibility, amidst the complications of love and conflict. At some point, this could risk descending into soap opera.
She was a charming young interlocutor. The framework 'love and war' is a distortion, because at their roots their not about war, or even, necessarily, love, though these elements suggest easy characterizations. I was inspired to read "Half of a Yellow Sun" by Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche after listening to the author interviewed at the BBC World Book Club.
Half of a Yellow Sun involves an ensemble of characters, and the war tests their relationships. "It was a tiny moment, brief and fleeting, but Olanna noticed how scrupulously they avoided any contact, any touch of skin as if they were united by a common knowledge so monumental that they were determined not to be united by anything else." Now is the time to get in on the ground floor of this remarkable talent, so you can say you were reading her 'back in the day' when she accepts the Nobel Prize. The subject matter is big-- love and loss in war-torn Biafra, civil war with Nigeria in the late 1960s--and she handles her material with grace, insight, and aplomb.
It occurs to me that in the last year I've read at least two other excellent books which could fall under the general framework of 'love and war': Birdsong, by Sebastian Faulks, and Cold Mountain, by Charles Frazier.
I'd still recommend it because it is very well-written, complete, and is a better quality of literature. I was looking forward to reading this, but it just didn't live up to my expectations. I struggled with reading this story and at the end, while I did like it, it's not one that I would read again.
Highly recommended~. Don't you love when you get to read a beautifully written novel and you actually learn something in the process.Adichie's "Half a Yellow Sun" is a moving story about several characters (two very different daughters of a rich businessman; a British ex-pat; a university academic; and a poor servant boy, among others) and the way their lives change during Biafra's struggle for independence from Nigeria during the late 1960s. It's a wonderfully evocative view of Africa, of the people, of the way of life that can be inextricably changed when two ethnic groups are warring.
The twins were at one time close, but somehow their relationship isn't what it used to be. I started this by the end of October but then came down with swine flu. The setting is Nigeria in the 1960s, right before the civil war happened between the Hausu Muslims and the Igbo Christians that resulted in the new state, Biafra, and what happened after it.Olanna and Kaiene - Two twins who just got back from London after finishing their Masters degree.
The depictions of the horrors of the war were very real and heartbreaking. I couldn't finish the book but I dreamt a lot about it. I would have probably given this book a 5 stars + heart had I read it in different circumstances.
4 and a half stars.This story, in short, is about war and loss, about what people/neighbors can do to each other; its about the 'conquer and divide' strategy and how people pretend everything's allright when it's far from it. He falls in love with Kaiene and finds that for the first time he's found a place he feels he can belong to.Ugwu - a young teenage villager who works for Odenigbo, a Mathematics proffesor at Nsukka university, gets attached to the family he works for and is given a chance to go to school.The prose was beautiful, and I was caught between admiring it and feeling wretched at what it was describing. Seems like the books I have been reading lately are very nightmares-inducing.
Their father is a 'Big Man' and they are quickly welcomed back in the upper society. Unidentical in both looks and personality, Olanna is more of a people's person, trying to please her parents in everything while her twin is more aloof and cynical.Richard - a young Brit who comes to Nigeria to write about ancient pottery and jewellery.
Please advise how best to do this. I would like to add an attachment (a piece I have written on Word relating to this book).
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